Last week, the Phoenix Preacher blog ran a post titled Red Flags over Gospel for Asia. The post describes a GFA donor’s attempt to get answers to questions which have come up in recent weeks. It is good to see donors asking questions but not so good to see the responses. The blog author raised some of the issues I have covered with this assessment.
GFA has felt that Throckmorton has been unfair to them and takes them out of context and so they have chosen to stop communicating with him in any efforts to clarify the concerns he raises. In my phone conversation with the GFA rep, he did give me explanations to some of the concerns raised by Throckmorton. However, some of the explanations seemed to me more like trying to put a positive spin on things rather than giving good solid evidence and rationale. Meanwhile, Throckmorton continues to raise more concerns as he uncovers more and more suspicious looking information. Here is a link to all his GFA articles: /category/gospel-for-asia/
I plead not guilty to this charge. Up to and including the last email from David Carroll, I included the information Carroll sent on behalf of GFA. Here is what he said in his final email:
No, Gospel for Asia has not violated the law.
When you first contacted us, I mentioned that we would not be able to respond to every question you put before us. Now, with the increased volume and frequency of your questions, it has become clear that this back and forth has become a distraction from our mission work. For this reason, this will be my final response. We understand that you will continue to explore issues around Gospel for Asia and continue to be fed accusations from former employees, and we accept that.
We continue to remain accountable to all applicable laws and regulations, to the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability and to independent auditors.
In his email, Carroll doesn’t accuse me of being unfair or taking him out of context. He said I asked too many questions and for that reason, he was not going to reply. This reason should be of grave concern to donors.
As we now know, GFA did violate the law when they sent groups of students to India each with $4500 in cash in envelopes without declaring the cash to U.S. customs.
The Phoenix Preacher post shows that the questions have only multiplied.